Curriculum News Year 2
Term 2, 2024

Term 2

Welcome to Term 2! The children have settled back into their learning environments, and we are all looking forward to a fun, busy term.

As a part of our Unit of Inquiry this term the students will be exploring that a balanced lifestyle is influenced by their choices that they make. We will also explore their family’s history, how it has changed over time and special family celebrations that they have. We will also look at other celebrations and different cultures from around the world.

Unit of Inquiry

Who We Are

A balanced lifestyle is influenced by the choices people make

Lines of inquiry:

What it means to have a healthy and balanced lifestyle

Spiritual, social and physical health (mind body spirit)
Making healthy food choices

Where We Are In Place And Time

The past influences our present and future

Lines of inquiry:

Family Histories
The reasons people migrate
Celebrations they bring with them
The significance of these celebrations today

Literacy

We are looking forward to an exciting term in Literacy as we continue to develop the student’s skills in Reading and Writing. We will be focusing on ‘The Daily 5’ of Read to self, Read to someone, Listen to reading, Work on Writing and Word Work. We will also continue to focus on the Literacy CAFÉ System which focuses on the four key components of successful reading. Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency and Expand Vocabulary.

Grammar and punctuation

We will continue to focus on capital letters, full stops and adding commas to items in a list. We will be looking at questions marks, exclamation marks and learning about nouns, adjectives and verbs. Finally, we will explore synonyms and antonyms.

Writing

During our Writing sessions, we will be focusing on the 6 Traits of Writing including Organisation, Sentence Fluency, Conventions, Voice and Ideas.

The students will be learning how to organise their writing with a Bold Beginning a Mighty Middle and an Excellent Ending. They will learn how to add detail to their sentences using the 5Ws (Who?, What?, Where?, When? and Why?), correct grammar and punctuation use, how to gather ideas for writing and how to use their own voice in their writing. The students will be given many opportunities to write and use their ‘Writers notebook’ to store their ideas, pictures and experiment with their writing.

Spelling

We are continuing with our SMART spelling approach. SMART Spelling is based around whole words with an emphasis on meaning and vocabulary development. Students must be able to read their spelling words, understand what they mean and how to use them.

Reading

During our reading sessions and Literacy groups we will we be explicitly teaching the students comprehension strategies for successful reading, how to read more fluently using expression, how to gain ‘Literal and Inferential’ meaning from the text and how to choose the perfect book when reading.

Speaking and Listening

Throughout Term 2 students will be encouraged to actively participate and contribute to class discussions, listen to their peer's presenting information, read orally to the teacher and each other, listen to the teacher read and learn how to be a good audience member. The students will also deliver an oral presentation based on one of our units of inquiry.

Focus Groups

This term we will be starting focus groups on a weekly basis. The children complete a pre-test on a topic/concept which we will be covering in class, on a platform called Essential assessment.

We then are able to look at their misunderstandings/misconceptions and work with a small group of children to practice and reinforce the skills needed. The groupings are fluid and we are aiming at seeing all of the children at various times throughout the term.

Numeracy

We are looking forward to an exciting term in Numeracy as we continue to develop the student’s skills in Number knowledge. We will be focusing with the ‘The Math Daily 3’ of Math by myself, Math with someone and Math writing. We will also continue to focus on using concrete materials to reinforce learning and clarify the students understanding of concepts through practical real-life experiences and activities.

Number Fluency

Prior to commencing our Maths lessons the students will continue to practise their maths fluency and number facts by engaging in a variety of activities where they are required to share their reasoning and strategies.

Number

Throughout the term the students will be working on their addition and subtraction skills and understanding the link between the two concepts. We will introduce strategies such as counting on, counting back, the jump and split strategy and using number lines and hundreds boards. We will also look at vertical addition and subtraction with and without regrouping.

The children will count and order small collections of Australian coins and notes according to their value and worked out change from given amounts.

During our numeracy sessions the students will be explicitly taught how to manipulate and utilise a range of concrete materials such as Unifix blocks, counters, MAB, hundreds charts and number lines to further support their problem-solving skills.

The students will be exposed to a range of mathematical concepts through picture story books to support them in rich learning experiences that promote the student’s ability to identify, simplify, organise, express and extend their thinking.

Measurement

The students will continue with learning about reading and writing the time to quarter to and quarter past on both an analogue and digital clock. We will investigate the effect of a flip, slide or turn on different shapes and how they may have changed or stayed the same.

Statistics

Throughout the term the students will be exposed to the notion of interpreting and analysing data. They will be explicitly taught how to describe the probability of events through the concept of chance by conducting their own research experiments, learn how to read and interpret data and create and display their findings through graphing.

Inclusive Approaches

Cyber Safety

Being an eSmart school means that our students are provided with the skills and knowledge they require for the smart, safe and responsible use of technology.

This term students in Year 2 will be focusing on the values of responsibility and integrity within the Cybersafety project that will allow students to:

Understand how we “know” and “connect” with people in the offline world.
Recognise the difference between our personal information and public information.
Explore the different spaces we go online and identify who might be able to see us.
Develop awareness for the need to set long and strong passwords for digital accounts.
Think about potential consequences of our actions when we are online.
Understand that what we share online may be made visible to anyone and can be permanent.

The Resilience Project

In Term 2 students will continue lessons from The Resilience Project. Our focus in Term 2 shifts to lessons on Empathy which tie in well with our units of inquiry on Who We Are and Where We Are in Place and Time.